Winter HooPla

Saturday & Sunday, February 3 & 4

6:30 – 8:30pm

at The Art Garden

and the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum Railyard

Our Winter HooPla features a series of ephemeral, outdoor art installations using rail yard buildings, old rail and commuter train cars, and other site-specific features of the railyard landscape.

In 2017, shadows cast from Reed Arahood’s carboard birds flew between large-scale shadow boxes set inside Freight house doorways. The shadow screens were created by Samantha Crawford, Jumi Shots and Laura Iveson. Photo by Reed Arahood.

Under the co-direction of artists Laura Iveson and Jane Beatrice Wegscheider, guest artists and community volunteers co-create a magical environment focusing on winter myths, whimsical and ephemeral winter-related ideas and contemporary issues. Installations are created using found, re-purposed, and natural materials, paper and light.

In 2017, Laura and volunteers transformed the historic T-car into an aquarium (using our giant Green River Festival cardboard fish.) What will it become this year?

Our Winter HooPla is free and open to all!

Hot cocoa will be served outside and light refreshments will be inside where visitors can also see Against All Odds: a community exhibit about Resistance & Resilience. There are 37 works in this exhibit made by 27 artists.

The HooPla is supported by a generous grant from The Art Angels. Thank you!

It would also not be possible without the hard work (often out in the cold) of many volunteers, community members and local artists. Thank you! Thank you!

Katie Sachs is a former western Mass resident active in the local music scene, who left four years ago to continue her music career in Austin, TX. She returns for a special performance of original songs spanning three albums worth of material, as well as some covers and a Tom Petty tribute. Come for an intimate evening of soulful Jazz-Folk, and to support The Art Garden.

Wednesday, November 1, 7 pm

Suggested Donation $10 – $15

We are pleased to be launching printmaking at The Art Garden with the following two monotype workshops and guest artist/teacher Joyce Silverstone:

Monotype Improvisation

Sunday, October 29, 1pm – 6pm

Monotype and Drypoint

Sunday, November 5, 1pm – 6pm

For a full description of the workshops with details about cost and registration, please scroll down to the bottom of our Calendar page.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

to the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts
Mission Express Grant

which helped us purchase the equipment needed to offer printmaking in our studio! Thank you Peter Chadwick for donating the press that got this all started! Thank you Liz Chalfin and Zea Mays Printmaking for providing us with your expert guidance and support! Thank you Bruton Strange for your donated time and carpentry skills creating a movable press and installing our cabinets and new sink area shelving and counter.
And thank you! thank you! artist and board member Laura Iveson for your dedication to this program and your work to make it happen.

Before summer’s abundance of creativity begins (in and outside The Art Garden),
I want to share some enchanting images from the third Fabulous Hilltown Draw-Around: our 12-hour creative community art-making extravaganza that local artist and Art Garden board member, Laura Iveson imagined, organized, coordinated and made happen with the help of over 50 volunteers.

First hour of the Draw-Around captured by James Smith

“Creativity is a force of Enchantment!”

—from Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Photo by Emily Crehan

One of the most magical things about the Draw-Around, for me, is how it draws out (sorry for the pun) the creativity in everyone:

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Photo by Emily Crehan

The historic Cowell Gym (where the Draw-Around takes place) is big enough to get lost in; after 12 hours the floor and walls were covered with exquisite and humorous testaments to private musings and communal exchanges:

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Photo by Emily Crehan

This year, 400 people became a part of something ephemeral and enchanting and bigger than ourselves; something that encouraged us to be ourselves, which is essentially what it means to be IN community.

Photo of local artist Nancy Katz ‘having a blast’ by James Smith

ARTeen Micah drawing her dad while her sister Anna takes photos

Thank you! Thank you, LAURA IVESON!

Photo by Nancy Katz

Thank you to the core group of movers and shakers who met for weeks to help shape the event. Thank you to the volunteers who showed up to prepare the space and clean it up afterwards.

Photo by James Smith

Thank you to everyone who helped during the Draw-Around, the artists who led workshops and community members who donated healthy food. Thank you Janice Sorensen for organizing and managing our Cowell Café! Thank you Reed Arahood for creating the Draw-O-Saurus:

Photo by James Smith

Thank you Samantha Crawford for creating the elaborate drawings that we enlarged to become the walls of our 3D garden coloring book:

Photo by James Smith

We are so grateful and enchanted!

Thank you local businesses for your support and Suzanne Conway for your whimsical tribute to them (and 12-hour drawing performance!)

Thank you to the following Local Cultural Councils for your support: Ashfield, Buckland, Charlemont/Hawley, Colrain, Conway, Deerfield, Heath, Leyden, Plainfield, Rowe, and Shelburne!

Thank you Phyllis Labanowski and ARTeen volunteers for welcoming everyone!

Photo by Phyllis Labanowski

All proceeds from the Draw-Around help support our ARTeens program.

Here are our current spring session ARTeens after Valley Gives Day
(which also supported their program!)

All this is what community looks like!

The spring session of our ARTeens afterschool program is up and running. It’s popular! We are now offering it twice a week, with 21 teens coming from three public high schools (Mohawk, Frontier, Four Rivers) and home school networks.

The slideshow below takes you INSIDE ARTeens! See and read some of the reasons why teens LOVE this program:

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ARTeens is a pay-what-you-can program so that no one will be turned away due to lack of funds. 85% of our families require financial assistance to attend.

Do you want to help support ARTeens OR do you know others who might?

The Art Garden is participating in Valley Gives Day on Tuesday, May 2nd.
This 24-hour day of giving supports the good work of hundreds of local non-profits.

All donations made on ourValley Gives pagewill support ARTeens*.
Every gift matters!
And each individual donor and each individual gift makes us eligible for prizes given out throughout the day.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

*ARTeens is a pay-what-you-can, afterschool program serving rural Franklin County teens. Teens come from three public schools (Mohawk, Frontier, Four Rivers) and home school networks. Teens come hungry for the freedom to express themselves and direct their own art-making in our community studio. Many of our teens have been marginalized or bullied for being different. Core to ARTeens is the co-creation of an inclusive community that fosters safety, acceptance, and responsibility using democratic processes to ensure everyone’s participation. ARTeens are encouraged to develop their understanding of themselves as engaged and compassionate artists, contributing to our communities with their artistic skills and creativity.

ARTeens has become a signature program of The Art Garden, embodying key components of our mission to nurture diverse creative processes, support the exchange of ideas, explore and build relationships in a non-judgmental and intergenerational art studio and engage people of all ages and abilities in community art projects that serve the common good. Our pay-what-you-can model reflects The Art Garden’s commitment to broad community access to quality arts programming. Artist co-facilitators, Phyllis Labanowski and Jane Beatrice Wegscheider, develop curriculum that incorporates exploration of new materials and creative engagement with contemporary issues; helping emerging teen artists understand the powerful impact their art-making can have in our communities and in the world.